Anna Atkins (1799 - 1871)

Anna Atkins came of age in Victorian England, a fertile environment for learning and discovery. Guided by her father, a prominent scientist, Atkins was inspired to take up photography, and in 1843 began making cyanotypes—a photographic process invented just the year before—in an effort to visualize and distribute information about her collection of seaweeds. With great daring, creativity, and technical skill, she produced Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first book to be illustrated with photographs, and the first substantial application of photography to science. Ethereal, deeply hued, and astonishingly detailed, the resulting images led her and her friend Anne Dixon to expand their visual inquiry to flowering plants, feathers, and other subjects. Source: New York Public Library exhibition description

Known for
Botany

Photography

First person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images

Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1834) (1st book illustrated with photographic images)

Find more
Wikipedia

Blue Prints: The Pioneering Photographs of Anna Atkins (NYPL exhibit description); NYPL also has images of the pages of her books

NY Times article on her and the exhibit (2018)